


It Talks In Tongues & Quiet Sighs

by hamiltrashed



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anger, Angst, Bitterness, Bittersweet, Ficlet, Fluff and Angst, Holding Hands, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamiltrashed/pseuds/hamiltrashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean holds hands to remind himself that sometimes all you <i>need</i> is a hand to hold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Talks In Tongues & Quiet Sighs

Dean likes holding hands. He likes the feel of someone else’s fingers between his. And that’s the only way he ever does it. He doesn’t hold hands like children or like old people (kind of like the way he only kisses mouths, not foreheads); he holds hands like lovers do, fingers laced up tight, palms touching. He can read people by the way they hold hands, can feel their work and their story etched in the lines there on their palms, in the calluses on their fingertips as they rest on the top of his hand. Hands are perfect to him.

There’s a lot of blood on his, and maybe that’s why he likes holding them so much. He feels like the sweat between his palm and someone else’s might wash that away for a day, an hour. Dean likes the way hands feel and learn the textures of things. When he reaches out to touch something, he tries to memorise the way it feels under his skin. Soft or rough or warm or cold… he tries to index it in his mind and remember, because his hands have killed many things. They have saved many lives, too, but sometimes Dean can’t see that and he can only remember the way a shotgun feels, the way it kicks in his hands when he fires it.

Dean holds hands to remind himself that sometimes all you _need_ is a hand to hold. Sometimes you don’t need bodies and sheets and kisses and friction, only lonely hands and the way they instinctively know to seek out other hands. For all the bullshit and the terror and the war and the drama, sometimes, what he really just needs is ten fingers - five of his, five of someone else’s.

Cas is good at holding hands. Dean thinks that when he pushes his fingers in between Cas’, he can feel warmth and grace and love and peace, all there in his palm. He holds hands with Cas a lot. Sometimes they sit on the hood of the Impala in the dark and Dean clutches at Cas’ hand like that will stop him from disappearing if he wants to. 

Dean does other things with Cas, too. It’s weird what they have, this sordid little relationship that isn’t right on any level. He shouldn’t and Cas shouldn’t let him because hey, Angel of the Lord and all, but they do it anyway. But more than anything they could do in a bed, Dean likes holding his hand because he learns more that way than he ever does between ugly cotton motel sheets. He likes the way Cas has so much power in those hands, the power to heal and the power to hurt and the power to bruise. And Cas' hands _have_ healed and bruised him. He remembers how he put a hand on him after Sam, after _Lucifer_ laid into him that day in the cemetery and all of his pain was gone just like that. And he still remembers how those hands curled into fists and beat the unholy shit out of him, Cas so rightfully angry with him for not recognising all the sacrifices he’d made for him.

Sometimes Dean still forgets, almost wishes Cas would do that again, because he thinks he deserves that kind of harsh reminder more than anything else. Dean is broken and ever breaking and so, so tired, but sometimes he forgets that he’s not the only one. But Cas just holds his hand instead, fingers tangled together, and even though most of the time Dean doesn’t think he’s ever earned it, he clings to that hand, cherishes that gentle pressure, and hopes it's there someday when he finally gets to rest.


End file.
